“Transformers Prime” final season preview: Executive producer Jeff Kline speaks

Transformers Prime final season (Season 3) begins Friday, March 22, at 7:30pm ET on The Hub. (A four-hour marathon precedes the premiere, beginning at 3:30pm ET)

I try to go into every interview remembering those lessons in journalism school about objectivity. Just how in sportswriting there’s no cheering in the press box, it’s a bit unprofessional to let your fan flag fly when talking to actors, writers and producers, even when they might be involved in something that strikes a deep chord from childhood.

So when I get Jeff Kline on the phone to talk about Season 3 of Transformers Prime — this go-round dubbed Transformers Prime Beast Hunters — just about all I can think of is that traumatic moment growing up when I saw Optimus Prime die. In 1986, the much-awaited (in my world, anyway) Transformers: The Movie unceremoniously dispatched the Autobot leader just a few minutes in, and he stayed dead. … Well, at least until he came back next season on the TV show, only to DIE AGAIN! Actually, Optimus Prime has had quite the habit of shuffling off this mortal coil, so much so that it’s actually possible now to count down the “10 Most Notable Deaths of Optimus Prime.”

Still, my anxiety can’t help but rise as I previewed the first two episodes of this final season only to see that Optimus is in serious trouble yet again. Are Kline and his crew planning to scar yet another generation of children by killing their noble hero?

“He just can’t stay healthy!” Kline laughs, as I picture him twirling an imaginary mustache with glee.

OK, very funny, Jeff, but seriously, do I need to worry?

“Yes, you should definitely worry about it,” he says. “Which doesn’t mean it will end the way you think it will, but you should definitely worry about it.”

RELATED: Optimus Prime speaks! An interview with Peter Cullen

All right, fine. So I’m not able to get quite the reassurance I was looking for, but Kline does have a bit to say about the series’ swan song. In addition to the well-being, or lack thereof, of Optimus Prime, the Autobots and Decepticons will have to contend with the arrival of a third faction, the Predacons, fierce hunters who transform into animals. The Predacons have been part of the Transformers universe since the early days, so bringing them back was a natural fit, Kline says, as the point of Prime has always been to win new fans while pleasing veterans of the franchise.

Transformers Prime Beast Hunters Season 3

“The idea behind Prime was if you had never seen another Transformers show, if you hadn’t started with G1 or seen any other iteration, you could enter the Transformers universe through our story and not feel like you were jumping into something in the middle. That was really, really important to us. Simultaneously, we didn’t want to bore longtime fans or rehash stuff they’d already seen, so that was really the balancing act for us, how to make it feel like it’s starting from the beginning but not make it feel like it was all stories oft-told at this point.”

There will also be some new looks to some of the characters this season, Kline says, which should keep things interesting. Aside from the excitement, though, Kline admits to “mixed feelings” as the series comes to a close. But he’s thankful that he and his crew were told ahead of time that this would be the final season, and that they were able to end Prime their way.

“The most important thing was to be true to the characters and the idea of where, three and a half years ago when we started mapping this out, where we wanted to go,” he says. “We’ve always said that Transformers Prime is a character-first show. The place we start is with each character — what their short-term arc is going to be, what their long-term arc is going to be. We had in mind where we might want to take all of our lead characters from the beginning. Some of that changes as you go through season to season, but I do think when you’re dealing with a series deeply rooted in a mythology or a continuity, you usually want to have an idea of not only where you want to start but where you want to end.”

And, let’s be real, endings are a relative term when talking Transformers. Through several television series, comics, toy lines, and now blockbuster movies, the Autobots and Decepticons will be carrying out their war for a long time to come. To wit, Kline is actually involved with another Transformers series as Prime winds down. Transformers Rescue Bots is aimed squarely at younger children, but does in fact take place in the same universe as Prime. Kline says he doubts there will be much referencing of the events of Prime as Rescue Bots continues its run, but it goes to show the diversity of the brand.

Beyond that, Kline says there is another Transformers series in the works for The Hub, but he had no details to share since it’s all still in the planning stages.

Let’s just hope Optimus is around to see it.

Photo: Courtesy of The Hub